UCLA Reunion

What a warm, comprehensive and nostalgic story Bob Pool wrote (“War Bonds,” Nov. 7) about our UCLA Class of 1942’s 50th reunion.

Our class was of a generation that was coming out of the worst depression in this nation’s history, only to be thrust suddenly into a war. As the 1942 senior class president, I recall with mixed emotions leading our graduating class down the aisle to get our diplomas, clad in cap and gown on that memorable day. Trading in those graduation clothes and the casual campus life for the olive green uniforms and the regimen of the armed services so quickly was a lifestyle shock.

It was panicky times, as well, for the threat of a Japanese invasion on the West Coast loomed ominously. Air raids over the nighttime Los Angeles skies proved to be nothing of the sort, although the shells launched from a submarine off the shore north of Santa Barbara gave some credence to the Japanese threat. Those of us who were here at that time feared for the lives of anyone who looked Japanese, American citizens or not. Moving them out of such a dangerous, emotional, racist climate seemed to us to be a lifesaving measure.

Thank you for this flashback to a time none of us shall ever forget.

BOB WOLCOTT

Glendale